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Table of Contents

Delsere's Magnum Opus (DMO) set receives a significant revision in Patch 2.4, bringing it to the forefront
of the Wizard endgame. With new items like Unstable Scepter and The Shame of Delsere and updates
to existing ones like Triumvirate, the Wizard shines with one of the strongest melee caster
playstyles; this bursty, control-heavy spec is available in both solo progression and speedfarming variations,
explained in that order.

1. About the Author

This build is presented to you by Deadset,
one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players.
Deadset regularly publishes video guides on
Youtube, where you can
see how this and other builds play out in practice.

2. Video Guide

The following video guide was created to accompany the present written guide and demonstrate how to play the build in-game.

4. Rotation

The major offense mechanic of the progression build lies in the buffed damage values of Arcane Orb,
repurposed for close combat with the Arcane Orbit rune and amplified by the DMO set 6-piece bonus. Your defenses
rely on the passive armor buff of Ice Armor, the set-induced damage reduction inside Slow Time, and on
the combat-dependent bonuses of Spectral BladeBarrier Blades and the Explosive BlastChain Reaction plus
Orb of Infinite Depth combo. Your mobility cooldown, Teleport, should be used offensively and
defensively depending on the situation: sometimes it will close the distance to a fight so you can drop
Slow Time and Halo of Arlyse freezes, and other times it will get you out of dangerous affixes. Do
not hesitate to take advantage of the Safe Passage defensive buff, as Illusionist will reset
Teleport's cooldown multiple times during a fight. Remember to balance periods of stationary fighting
for the Endless Walk set damage bonuses with bursts of movement to a fresh fight, as the interaction between your
Halo of Arlyse and Ancient Parthan Defenders depends on the number of frozen enemies, and ones you have
already frozen get progressively resistant to it.

Contrastingly, the power of the speedfarming variation comes from the relentless Explosive Blast spam, augmented
by the powers of Wand of Woh, Orb of Infinite Depth and the Slow Time amplification from the DMO set. To
keep up its costs, you will be spamming Diamond SkinPrism, whose cooldown is effectively negated by
In-geom procs. As a minor inconvenience of the playstyle (compared to a Flashfire build, for example) is the
need to pay attention and drop Slow Time on top of every engagement. You will use Teleport for
active maneuvering, and Storm ArmorScramble passively in the background for its movespeed procs. Lastly, you
can use any primary skill of your liking to proc the generator requirement of the Focus and
Restraint rings (Spectral Blade is used in the video demonstration to minimize switch downtimes with
the progression spec).

5. Skills, Runes and Passives

Spectral Blade will serve multiple purposes in the build; firstly, it counts towards the DMO set 2-piece
requirement, reducing Slow Time's cooldown by 2 seconds per cast. Secondly, as a signature skill it falls
in the category of The Shame of Delsere belt, resulting in 50% faster attack speed and up to 12 Arcane Power per
hit, regenerating your AP reserves lightning fast when pushing with the progression spec. Thirdly, it will empower your
Arcane Orbit with the stacking mechanics of Triumvirate and Arcane Dynamo, or simply act as a proc
for your Focus and Restraint bonuses during speedfarm. Last but not least, it has a defensive function
from the Barrier Blades rune, helping you stay alive in this melee spellcasting spec.

The basic long range spender Arcane Orb is transformed into a close combat monstrosity with the
Arcane Orbit rune. Affected by the DMO 6-piece damage buff, detonating twice through the power of the new
Unstable Scepter and boosted even further by Triumvirate and Arcane Dynamo stacks, these orbiting
arcane globes will chew through your enemies' health in seconds. Make a point to recast Arcane Orb at least with
a stacked Triumvirate (3 Spectral Blade attacks), but ideally after you fully stack up Arcane Dynamo
as well (5 Spectral Blade attacks). Finally, note that the speedfarming spec completely switches away from the progression
build's Arcane Orb focus, replacing it with the resource management powerhouse of Diamond SkinPrism. Achieving
permanent uptime through In-geom procs, this utility cooldown will reduce costs of all skills by the impressive 9 Arcane
Power, allowing for the trademark Explosive Blast spam of Wand of Woh builds.

Slow Time is integral to DMO setups, amplifying the damage of multiple skills inside its radius, as well as
cutting incoming damage in half for you and by a quarter for party members. You will augment its damage reducing properties
with another 25% from the Exhaustion rune. Slow Time has a sizable 15-second cooldown, which you
circumvent through the 2-piece set bonus of DMO and your Spectral Blade and Arcane Orb spam. Do not hesitate
to spread multiple Slow Times as the battle demands: they are free to cast, and your damage will be negligible
outside their radius.

Explosive Blast will be part of both the progression spec and the speedfarming variation, serving mostly as protection
for the former, or the main damage dealer for the latter. You will be taking the multiple explosions of the Chain Reaction rune,
quickly maximizing the damage reduction benefits from the Orb of Infinite Depth source. An alternative for the slot when
progressing in GRs is found in the defense and damage amplifier Magic WeaponDeflection. This long lasting steroid remains
quietly in the background and procs consistently off Spectral Blades and Arcane Orbs. This variation allows you to
run The Furnace in the Cube for a significant damage increase against elites, but limits your overall damage reduction.
Deciding between these two variations is up to personal preference, as their performance in GRs is extremely comparable.

When pushing Greater Rifts, immediate repositioning will often be required — evading a bad affix, engaging fresh enemies for
Ancient Parthan Defenders procs, or simply to gain a Toughness buff without losing maxed Endless Walk bonuses. In speedrunning,
it is equally vital to cut down rift clear time to a minimum.Teleport will cover you for all these purposes, along with
the damage reduction of the Safe Passage rune.

For additional protection in GRs, we will be using Ice Armor with the massive bulwark of Crystallize. The short reach
of the build will inevitably put you in melee brawls, refreshing your Crystallize stacks constantly. The added value from
Halo of Arlyse will bring excellent crowd control on top of the mitigation, solidifying Ice Armor as the defensive spell
of choice. For normal rifts, the Goldwrap plus Boon of the Hoarder combo will take care of protection, and you should swap
Ice ArmorCrystallize for the reliable movement speed boost of Storm ArmorScramble.

This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.

Reworked into a comparable function to other cheat deaths, Unstable Anomaly gives you one shot at dodging a lethal
situation. Operating on a standard 60-second cooldown and adding a 3-second stun to nearby enemies — plus a solid 400% max
life shield for 5 seconds — it will become a constant companion to your Greater Rift pushes. An alternative to this passive
is Unwavering Will, synergizing with the static fighting style of the build and adding significant Toughness with the 20%
Armor buff.

Another powerful survival tool is hidden in your Illusionist passive, feeding further CDR into your Slow Time
and turning Teleport from a strategic cooldown into a constantly available asset. The requirement of 15% life taken per
hit is calculated prior to mitigation and translates into “any hit taken” in high Greater Rifts. The additional 30% movement speed
after using some of the build's core abilities is just icing on the cake.

Audacity is a natural inclusion in a melee range spellcasting builds like this one, bringing an impressive 30%
multiplicative damage increase against enemies within 15 yards.

Arcane Dynamo synergizes excellently with the GR progression build that already has a signature skill buildup mechanic from
Triumvirate. Offering the whopping 60% multiplicative increase of your next spender with fully stacked Flashes of Insight,
Arcane Dynamo necessitates a 5 Spectral Blade to 1 Arcane Orb rotation for the pushing build. Note that during
speedfarming, the Explosive Blast spam spec completely negates the benefits of the controlled DPS, progression-oriented
Arcane Dynamo passive; replace it with Evocation to further reduce time between detonations and other important cooldowns.

6. Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives

The build incorporates the complete Delsere's Magnum Opus set, taking all six available pieces and opening up the jewelry for
the Endless Walk set and its damage multiplication bonuses. Area Damage is important for the Arcane Orbit Wizard and is a
recommended roll on Fierce Gauntlets (along with both Crit stats and Intelligence) and Dashing Pauldrons of Despair (along
with Intelligence, Vitality and Life %). Harness of Truth and Leg Guards of Mystery should remain pure Toughness slots.
Shrouded Mask and Striders of Destiny can roll Arcane Orb % bonus, and it is mandatory to seek the skill bonus at least on
the boots. Note that stacking Armor benefits you because of the balancing of sources of mitigation, as All Resistance is already
abundant on an Intelligence-based character.

Not skipping on any of the six available set pieces to obtain the full Delsere's Magnum Opus set bonus allows you to split
between offense and defense in the jewelry slots. One of the 2.4 reworks, the Endless Walk set — The Compass Rose ring and
The Traveler's Pledge amulet — adds a unique mechanic that slowly increases your damage by up to a 100% if you remain stationary,
and drains it away and increases your damage reduction while moving. This is identical to the DMO Arcane Orbit playstyle,
which teleports long distances into a favorably dense area and then transitions into a stationary Spectral Blade and
Arcane Orb rotation.

Your other ring slot will be taken by the pure damage boost of Convention of Elements, whose rotation of elemental bonuses you
will need to learn and time to maximize the benefits of the short-lived Arcane proc. The ideal stats are Crit Chance, Crit Damage,
an open Socket and Area Damage.

Understandably, both the buildup mechanic of the Endless Walk set and cycling damage bonuses of Convention of Elements are unfit
for the speedy Torment difficulties, where they are best replaced by the Bastions of Will set, Focus and Restraint. These
rings excel at all-out offense by offering a 2.25 independent damage multiplier as long as you alternate between a primary and spender attacks
— which you do by alternating between Explosive Blast and Spectral Blade. These speedrun rings are best completed with a
Hellfire Amulet, as it allows you to include another farm-appropriate passive like Glass Cannon.

Introduced in Patch 2.4, The Shame of Delsere belt is an Arcane Power regeneration powerhouse that speeds up your signature
spells by 50% and restores up to 12 AP per hit. While this bonus will be vital in Greater Rift pushes to maintain the damage reduction of a
cubed Aquila Cuirass, your protection in normal rifts will be taken care of by Goldwrap. The latter supplies you with practically
infinite Toughness on a good Boon of the Hoarder gold streak.

In progression, the cubed Halo of Arlyse finds a synergistic companion in the Ancient Parthan Defenders, whose unique property
triggers off Freeze effects as well (inexplicably missing from the item tooltip). With the chain triggers of Frost Nova from the ring, diving
into massive fights turns from a suicide tactic into a survival tool through the numerous damage reduction procs of the bracer. An important playstyle
tip to remember is to stay on the move, as crowd control on the same monster diminishes with each successive application — so always seek out
fresh packs to reduce damage with. Naturally, these defensive precautions will be overkill in normal rifts, and Ancient Parthan Defenders will
go with them; they should be replaced by Nemesis Bracers, aiming to get you from one In-geom proc to another quicker by spawning elites
at every shrine or pylon.

The mandatory weapon of the progression build is the Unstable Scepter, a 2.4 addition that not only rolls with up to 65% Arcane Orb damage,
but also has a unique affix that detonates Arcane Orbs twice — effectively doubling the spec's damage output. The biggest and most important
swap in speedfarming is, of course, the weapon: instead of the Unstable Scepter, you will use dedicated Explosive Blast legendary
Wand of Woh. As a tip to circumvent the rarity of the item, it is recommended that you collect and/or craft rare level 70 Wands (Sovereign Diabolic
Wand) in bulk at the Blacksmith, and then use the Upgrade Rare recipe in Kanai's Cube. The Hope of Cain recipe (1 rare item, 50 of white, blue and yellow
crafting materials) will only produce legendary wands, cutting down all other one handers in the RNG pool that you would have to deal with through regular
gambling at Kadala.

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation.
The gem procs itself with its level 25 property when in melee range, perfectly suitable to both presented playstyles.

Esoteric Alteration is the strongest mitigation gem available, and its impact is noticeable in this close range caster
build. Improving your elemental resistances with every gem level and adding an emergency toughness spike through the level 25
property, Esoteric Alteration ensures that enemies will have a hard time bursting you down. In Torment runs, this slot is best
taken by Boon of the Hoarder, whose interaction with the cubed Avarice Band and worn Goldwrap will keep you rich,
safe and sped up throughout the run.

Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken occupies the third and final jewelry socket. Building up your damage
multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to
assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. In lower Greater Rifts or during farming, you
can easily swap this gem out for the well-rounded damage and toughness increase of Bane of the Powerful.

In progression, the weapon slot can be taken by Orb of Infinite Depth, a Wizard offhand designed around DMO's set bonuses
which twists the damage role of Explosive Blast into a source of additional buffs. These buffs build up every time
Explosive Blast hits an enemy, with an end result of 20% multiplicative damage increase and the substantial 60%
Damage Reduction at the maximum 4 Orb of Infinite Depth stacks. Getting these bonuses up as soon as possible dictate the
choice of the Chain Reaction rune. If you run the Magic WeaponDeflection variation of the progression build you can
cube The Furnace, the strongest generic two-handed weapon in the game. With its 50% additional elite damage affix it speeds
up clear times greatly, as Champion and Rift Guardian fights are the usual GR bottleneck. Finally, during speedruns the weapon slot
should be taken up by In-geom for the ubiquitous 10-second cut of important cooldowns.

Aquila Cuirass will halve incoming damage as long as Arcane Power doesn't dip below 90% of its reserve, which is an
uncompromising teaching tool on using Spectral Blade with The Shame of Delsere during GR progress, or Diamond SkinPrism
in speedfarm. Be mindful of your AP spending if you are using the Explosive Blast variation of the build to progress, as it consumes
slightly more AP on a regular basis than the Magic Weapon variation. As a final note, if you feel you are overkilling on Toughness
during normal rifts, you can swap this slot out for Warzechian Armguards for their regular, destruction-based speedups.

As a build that regularly stands toe to toe with monsters, Halo of Arlyse will occupy the jewelry cube slot by necessity
during GR progression. Halo of Arlyse will multiply the effectiveness of your Ice Armor mitigation, and provide additional
crowd control. As long as the requirements of the ring are met (and they are calculated pre-mitigation), it will release a constant streak of
Frost Novas, unhindered by internal cooldowns. For the progression spec, the jewelry cube slot is interchangeable with
Convention of Elements depending on your better rolled item. When speedfarming, swap this slot into the Act III cache legendary ring
Avarice Band. Its unique property extends your pickup radius up to the massive 30 yards for a generous 10-second period. Triggered,
maximized and constantly refreshed from the endless stream of Boon of the Hoarder gold, the ring and the gem will keep you sped up and
invulnerable from the worn Goldwrap.

10. Follower

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our
Follower Guide, which contains detailed
advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

11. ChangeLog

21 Oct. 2016: No update needed for Season 8.

30 Jul. 2016: Updated the guide to include speedfarming options for Patch 2.4.2.